Ning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ning can be a pinyin transliteration of a unisex Chinese name.

Ning is a company co-founded by Marc Andreessen (of Netscape fame) and Gina Bianchini. It launched its service in October 2005.

Ning is an online platform for creating social websites and social networks. The websites running on its service are built in standard PHP and the platform itself is built in Java.

Unique Features

The unique feature of Ning is that anyone can make a full copy of the types of social websites and social networks that are popular today and customize them for a particular topic or need, catering to specific audiences. Today Ning offers a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose.

These websites are also programmable. There is a "View Source" tool on each website, allowing users to look at the source code behind any running site. Additionally, when a person makes a copy of a website on Ning they get the full source code running that website, so they can change features or the logic underlying it.

Business Model

Currently, Ning is entirely free service, and according to the Ning FAQ, there is no expectation that this will change. This has led to a number of questions from users on how Ning plans to make money. The company's answer to these questions is that it will make money through advertising as well as premium features.

External links

• Ning
• Ning Blog
• Ning Videos (Which can be copied and used for a niche videos site)
• Ning Photos (Which can be copied and used for a niche photos site)
• Ning Group (Which can be copied and used for a group website and can be made private or public)